"The scientific enterprise is built on a foundation of trust. Society trusts that scientific research results are an honest and accurate reflection of a researcher's work."

So begins the preface to "On Being a Scientist," a book by the National Academies of Science (NAS) that should be required reading by every scientist (free at nap.educatalog/12192.html).

The preface goes on to say that when "the professional standards of science are violated, researchers are not just personally affronted - they feel that the base of their profession has been undermined. This would impact the relationship between science and society."

I've learned from personal experience that most scientists meet the high standards that we and the NAS expect of them. Sadly, however, there are exceptions.

In recent decades many examples of scientific misconduct and even fraud have been reported. Several of the leading journals of science have been victimized by scientists who submitted reports based on made-up data.

Although these bad apples are a tiny minority of the scientific establishment, they give science a bad name.

The Internet has provided an unexpected view of the behind-the-scenes world of questionable science. In 2009, thousands of emails between scientists closely associated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were released to the public without permission by an unknown insider or hacker. (I am a reviewer of the IPCC 2013 report.) This incident became known as Climategate.

The Climategate emails revealed a seamy side of global warming science in which efforts were made to subvert the peer-review process and to conceal climate data.

When I asked England's University of East Anglia if the emails were authentic, I became a suspect in the investigation of the unauthorized email release. My penalty was a 20-minute interview by a British police officer.

The latest major science scandal also involves global warming. Last month Peter Gleick resigned as chairman of the American Geophysical Union Task Force on Scientific Ethics. He confessed that he falsely posed as a board member of a foundation skeptical of the human role in global warming. His purpose was to obtain the foundation's internal documents, which he leaked to the press without revealing his name.

While some environmental activists have endorsed Gleick's misconduct, Gleick himself apologized and described his action as "a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics."

The scientific community agreed. So did Gleick's employer, the Pacific Institute, which he founded and directs. The organization placed him on a leave of absence pending an investigation.

Hopefully the wide publicity given these and other examples of scientific misconduct will help reduce its occurrence.